


Alas, I Cannot Swim

by jettisondown



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood Memories, M/M, Multi, OFC: Madame Miyazaki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 03:21:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jettisondown/pseuds/jettisondown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An erratic stitching of Sherlock's and John's path: individually and their eventual friendship. There is sibling alienation in misguided attempts at protection; what drives families apart and brings them back together. And that the lesson ultimately learned, is sometimes we don't need the best, we only need what's true. </p><p>Title taken from my goddess in all expression, Laura Marling's song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alas, I Cannot Swim

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I have been sitting on for a long while. And it joins the furor of the millions of fanfics out there, and most of them I can't even begin to light a flame to. But this is my attempt at the Holmes' backstory, with my own little twists and turns. We'll start out with Sherlock, and find our way to John quite a ways before they find each other. I hope I bring their characters justice, if not, well, the image of Sherlock's disdainful glare, and John's sympathetic yet embarrassed smile is punishment enough. 
> 
> Un-beta-ed for the time being. I'm very sorry.

  
"Do you understand, Sherlock?"

 

Blue eyes cast around the room before the deigning irises land at the front to the figure -- nameless, irritated, and growing impatient judging by the way she tapped the ruler against her thigh. There were equations birthed from chalk and friction streamed across the blackboard, waiting to be completed.

 

An eyebrow quirk for contempt, and a defiant tilt of a petulant chin was necessary before the black curls bobbed in a small nod.

 

“Show me, then.”

 

“Prove it, you mean?” Boyish pink lips rounded the words with a sneer; malicious for a child of eight.

 

She sighed, “Yes, show me you understand.”

 

A sharp scrape of a chair, and a brief interruption to the sunlight provided by the garden window -- one blink and you’d think the black curls were golden; he walked to the front of the room and picked up the paper aeroplane he had thrown at her head as she finished filling the board just minutes before. The half second of hoping that this time she’d at last feel like a teacher before the sharp tip hit her left temple.

 

Small pale fingers bent, and lengthened; palms flattened as he unfurled the paper and handed it over without a word.

 

Tired eyes roamed the lines of numbers that danced across the creamy white sheet. Solutions. Answers. Knowledge. Corrections.

 

“Now, _you_ can understand too, Teacher!”

 

She was writing her letter of resignation before the mahogany door closed behind him.

 

“There’s a train leaving the station to London at 6:13. Plenty of time for you to pack, and get a spot to eat. I’ll tell Mummy.”

 

_Mrs Holmes, I do regret this. But how do you teach a child who knows everything?_

 

=======

 

“ _I’m sorry, Mrs Holmes_.” The first. Questionable.

 

“ _But you must understand. Surely, you understand? There’s nothing to be done._ ” The second. Pathetic.

 

“ _Sherlock...he knows. He just knows everything_.” Third. “ _I have nothing to offer  
your household_.” Obviously.

 

“ _He’s a highly intelligent child. Curious...very curious_.” Fourth. Useless.

 

=======

 

“ _I fear our dear Sherlock may not be the best candidate for traditional schooling, Mummy. He’s determined to drive people away_.”

 

_Fuck off, Mycroft._

 

=======

 

Sherlock woke to a fourteen year old’s aching knees, and gave a sleepy gasp when he kicked off his sheets. Pointing his bare toes before settling them onto the hardwood floor, he gave himself a cursory glance at the mirror by his dresser.

 

An inch and a half then, he quickly calculated, since last week. Maybe another two months before he catches up to Mycroft. Maybe even surpass him if he inherited enough of Grandpere Francis’ genes. A smirk hooked the right corner of his lips as he pulled on his trousers and socks. He looked out the window as he pushed his feet inside his shoes; toes squirming and settling.

 

The storm that raged through the previous night had blown out its tantrum and settled itself into the murmurings of songbirds and twinkling of morning dew.

 

Breakfast consisted of toast and tea. He munched without quite tasting, and drank without savouring. He watched Mycroft’s belly tighten and sag as he bent over his shoes to needlessly tighten the laces, and sneered as he noted his brother had had to make use of another belt hole to accommodate his ballooning girth. Mycroft sighed as he caught sight of the lank figure idling by the main corridor entrance. The face hidden in shadow.

 

“I’ve hired a new teacher for you, Sherlock. Try to at least make this one last a semester.”

 

“Whatever for? I have proven to be far more intelligent than the lot you have hired to see to my needs these past six years.”

 

“Everyone needs schooling, Sherlock. However insipid and ungrateful they are.”

 

“My books and microscope provide me everything I need.”

 

“There will come a time where you will understand that not everything can be analyzed under a lens, brother mine.” A long finger raised to adjust the rim of his hat, the eyes flashed for a brief moment.

 

“Sentiment. How utterly plebeian. What have you hired this time, Mycroft? Some retired Cambridge chancellor? Russian governess?”

 

Fishing his copper watch from his breast pocket, he nodded towards the awaiting driver who bowed and donned his cap, making his way across the gravel drive to open the car door.

 

“Make sure you’re in the study at 9:00 sharp. I’ll see you at Christmas.”

 

He picked up his briefcase and made his way out the door but paused just before the maid could close it entirely. Her sturdy leather shoes scuffed a bit on the rug as she quickly pulled back the heavy wooden door just in time. The older Holmes brother searched solemnly through the growing morning sun and the lingering night shadows before his eyes met ones as piercing as his. This was his younger brother, always caught between the extremes, and wanting to do with neither.

 

“Try to understand, Sherlock.”

 

The door closed and tyres could be heard groaning against rock and pavement before gaining speed and fading from sight and sound.

 

A light draft wafted through dark curls as the lonely boy stood in complete shadow. It was three minutes after the clock in the hallway struck 9:00 before his feet walked him briskly down the plush carpet toward the study. It took him five more minutes to reach the door because he took note of the different sounds his shoes made at different paces  
and strides.

 

He took his time.

 

========

 

“You’re my new violin instructor. That much is obvious. Japanese. Mid forties. You weren’t born here; you have had to acclimatize to our culture, our language and our way of dress. You’ve more grey hair than the average women in your demographic: trauma, great deal of stress. So, refugee? You didn’t come here out of want; you came here out of necessity. You have been malnourished for a substantial part of your life -- your posture is appalling. Given your age and demeanor and the supposed scars on your neck and arms -- who else wears long sleeves and collars in the middle of August?  
I’d say, Nagasaki survivor?”

 

Thin, sharp black eyes rose to meet his grey taunting ones. They locked for seconds which ticked into minutes. Sherlock was used to this game; he played it far too often with Mycroft. It was a game of weakness. One he rarely lost. But there was too much activity behind the woman’s eyes, something he couldn’t decipher, whereas Mycroft’s held defiance and exasperation -- because Sherlock put it there.

 

A rare, almost alien flare of nerves writhed in his stomach. Birthed from what he can only admit as question. Doubt. He blinked. Barely. But the damage was done.

 

Surrender.

 

There was soft hardness in the voice that filled the room. Feminine, and aged.

 

“My name is Miyazaki. Let us begin, Mister Holmes.”

 

========

 

Their mornings began at nine.

 

The first week, he would deliberately delay. Chew his breakfast slower. Purposely forget his bow. Neglect to tune his Klotz. Choose to start on his cultures half an hour before lessons.

 

But Miyazaki never said a word. Never punished. He could saunter in defiant and bristling with insults and rebellion ready to fire as soon as she hurled any admonishments his way but none ever came. They would start when he was ready, and end when the blasted clock in the hallway clanged noon -- as scheduled.

 

Whenever he was dismissed, he couldn’t fight the sensation that he was being cheated.

 

After the third week, he found he was tired of creating excuses to be late and one morning she arrived in the study to be met with a Sherlock Holmes lounging by the window looking out into the garden, twirling his bow between graceful fingers. Sunlight bleeding golden sinews in his black hair. She didn’t comment on this either.

 

At the age of fourteen, for the first time in his life, Sherlock came to someone else.

 

========

 

Composers were a ten a penny. Symphonies even more so.

 

Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Tchaikovsky. Celebrated figures made famous by their compositions that apparently _moved_ people in their intricacies and tricky jumps in notes. It was merely ink on paper, and strategic placements of notes and rests, he thought savagely. Crescendos and diminuendos. It’s just the audience who put the emotions and sentiment behind such music. It’s just the audience who put  
value on things so subjective and irrelevant. People who were incapable of simple expression, and resort to some outlandish outlet to convey basic emotion.

 

Pathetic.

 

The mother of two extraordinary boys sighed as she turned in for the night. She shut her eyes against the screeches of bow and rosin half a household away. The owner’s mind lightyears distant.

========

 

_“Do you understand why these pieces stand the test of time, Mister Holmes? Why we still consider them treasures after so many centuries, and after so many concerts?”_

 

_“They are pieces to be mastered. They are difficult, and complex. Uncommon. People like complexity.” He tapped his foot impatiently, ready to proceed to the next movement._

 

_“No, Mister Holmes. That is not it.”_

 

_“Then what is it? It **touches** them?” A sneer._

 

_Their eyes meet. For a reason which escapes him, he finds his gaze floundering._

 

_The clock strikes noon._

 

========

 

It was in the middle of an angry snow storm when he first heard it.

 

His fingers paused against the metal of his microscope dial. The clock clanged three times against the dark stillness of early morning. He held his breath, waiting for the echoes to subside. Icy slivers crashed against his bedroom window; he remained so still he could almost feel the cold burn on his skin.

 

There. The clock finally relented to fainter wails of an unknown source.

 

A violin, his mind breathed in realization and recognition.

 

It was a tune he did not know. Original then, he thought. The hair sample he had been studying lay forgotten and unimportant. Boring.

 

The notes were drawn, and tired. The melody sifted through the floorboards and situated themselves in every crevice of the house. He felt rather than heard them.

 

 _Pain_. His mind fed him. His chest twisted.

 

He blinked and shook his head, choosing instead to focus on naming the notes. It was no time for sentiment. This was a melody to conquer and master. It was the first time _hearing_  
his tutor’s skill and he was grudgingly impressed.

 

This simply will not do.

 

=======

 

“I trust you have been studying the Tchaikovsky I have assigned you last week, Mister Holmes.”

 

“Yes, Madam Miyazaki.”

 

“I wish to hear it.”

 

“Yes, Madam.”

 

Hiding his smirk against his shoulder, he lifts his bow and plays. But not Tchaikovsky. Instead, he produces the melody that had disturbed the quiet of his house that snowy night. The one that kept him frozen in sentient for those precious seconds. The notes that pushed his brain to supply emotion where he didn’t need it. The notes that rendered him _common_. _That_ was something he simply could not forgive. And this was her punishment. A once private moment stripped and made vulnerable; its notes shivering at the mechanical indifference of his fingers and bow.

 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her rise from behind her desk her face dark and hidden. His lip curled ever so briefly as he rounded the last corner of the music. The notes unfurled beautifully under his careful fingers, and he tasted sweetness behind his tongue. She waited until he lifted his bow and his eyes flickered to hers in mocking defiance. Wordlessly, she motioned for him to put his instrument down. He obeyed without question; light giddiness flooded his fingers as it did whenever he knew he pushed too far, too fast. A tumble of possibilities rushed through his mind of how she would react. But before could decide on the likelihood of each, his head snapped sharply sideways as a calloused hand slammed against his right cheek.

 

Burned and stung, he clutched his face as he whipped back to face her. Anger and threats were ready missiles. But their launch was stalled and swallowed when he saw she had picked up his Klotz and nestled it against a thin neck and shoulder. Small, compact hands gripped his bow and quite without warning, she began to play. The same notes wafted through the room once more. But this time it stole the air with it as it traveled along the walls, floor, and ceilings before eventually escaping through the cracks of the doors and windows. They breathed life and took it at the same time with every stroke and tease of bow and finger.

 

 _Pain_. His mind whispered.

 

 _Tragedy_. His heart supplied.

 

Astonishing.

 

It wasn’t until the jolt that rocked through his legs and torso that he realized he had fallen to his knees. His hands fell from their clutch at his cheek and slowly began circling his own waist till he could reach no further. His eyes flamed: a sign of submission. But to what, he  
could not place. Only to whom.

 

Through his broken pants, he realized the music had stopped and he could feel her hard gaze on him. His eyes shuttered as the bow suddenly glided across his crown, sending jagged shivers down his spine.

 

“I fear, Mister Holmes that I have taught you nothing.”

 

Sputtering slightly, his wet eyes raised and pulsing with fear.

 

“Please, how can I play like you do? Please, I need to know.”

 

Sad eyes warred against his fearful ones, awash with pity. She lowered his violin from its perch on her shoulder. The cheap cotton of her tunic slipped at the movement and his eyes registered a scant sliver of angry, reddened skin against her dull lustre.

 

Scar tissue.  
Burns.

 

She knelt in front of him and placed the instrument against his arms; the impromptu brace against his heart. He opened them to accept, the request once again at his lips. She cupped his jaw softly and she said,

 

“You know. But do you understand?”

 

He opened his mouth to protest. Yes.

 

She shook her head. No.

 

“What do you know? Numbers? Atoms? Molecules? Key signatures, and beats? How do your equations factor in Love? Pain? Happiness? Sacrifice?”

 

“I-I know-”

 

“No!” This time he registered the slap as he fell to his right. Tears falling freely. A choked sob escaped him.

 

“You understand _nothing!_ You know _nothing!_ ” Her hard voice hissed.

 

She stood up.

 

“You may understand the chemistry, the science. You master knowledge. But you fail at human connection. What do you know in the end? You have forced yourself into removal. You are an _amateur_ and a _coward_.”

 

He waited for the door to close and her footsteps to subside before giving in to cry into the carpet.

 

=========

 

_“Heavens, Sherlock. What happened to your face? Should I call Dr Trevor?”_

 

_“It is nothing, Mummy. I-It was a miscalculation.”_

 

_=========_

 

“I fail to see the necessity. “

 

“Untrue. You just fail to see the need to oblige.”

 

“That is what I said.”

 

“Mister Holmes. You are mere months away from your eighteenth birthday. It is time for you to leave this household, leave my tutelage, and pursue higher forms of education. I learned from your mother, that the Holmes’ have cultured fine pedigrees in the halls of Cambridge.”

 

The now six foot boy flopped petulantly about the sofa, dismissing the last remark with a rich snort. His dark locks have grown chocolate, the curls graceful; the sort of ease that school girls envy and artists ache to capture. He snapped the elastics of his suspenders and gave a frustrated sigh.

 

“And what is to happen to you?”

 

A papery set of lips formed a crackled smile. He watched the wrinkled, brown skin stretch and settle.

 

“Me, Mister Holmes? I shall seek my fortunes elsewhere. You no longer have need of me, I am afraid.”

 

A silence fell over the study. The afternoon sun told him that they had practiced well beyond the lunch bell, but the gnawing in his stomach had little to do with hunger, and very much to do with panic and insecurity.

 

“You...You won’t be here when I come back?” Timidity flooded the words and shredded them into bytes of meekness and youth he so longed to leave behind.

 

“I am a mere guide from your childhood into adolescence. You have grown into an exceptional young man. You now tower over me, and before long, you will not even acknowledge my existence. Not when the whole world lies ahead of you. For you to seek.”

 

Knees now pressed against his chest. The words were whispered rather than spoken. Strands of reluctance hung in the air with delicate balance. Too much pressure and his composure will topple. Too little, and weakness will rear its head into exposure.

 

“Where will you go?”

 

“Home. Wherever that may be.”

 

The boy clutched at the overstuffed cushions beneath his head. Childish pleas and reasoning ready to flower and blossom at the tip of his tongue. He pressed closer, and wound tighter within himself.

 

There was no rationality for his panic, for the babblings of an abandoned child that bubbled and warred at his throat.

 

 _Home. Home is **here**_. He wanted to say. To beg. To believe.

 

He took a breath and held it tight in his nose. His eyes darting from corner to corner; from bookshelf to tile. Home is _here_ , he willed in his brain. He opened his mouth, the words already formed against his teeth. But just as he was about to speak and argue, he heard the gravel crunch on the drive outside, and the scurry of the housemaids to welcome Mycroft home. He felt his jaws snap shot, and all arguments swallowed -- leaving a hardened seed against the walls of his stomach -- refusing to grow and seek light.

 

The sun drifted behind a veil of clouds. The hall clock announced the fifteenth hour of the day. Neither of the two spoke.

The deep chimes filled the room, washing over their bodies as if they weren’t quite there at all.

 

“Come, Mister Holmes.” She beckoned softly. His bow was pressed against his hands and he accepted them instinctively.

 

Together, the two of them played -- engulfing their room with their music. Cocooning them from the rest of the house. Keen grey eyes noted the shadowed feet behind the heavy door, but he closed them and played with more earnest, and desperation and his teacher  
followed. The music was building a solid wall – private, familiar only to those who create it; driving everything else away.

 

Home, he thought.

 

Yes.

 

Wherever that may be.

 

=========

“Mummy  wishes  for you to come home for Christmas, Sherlock.”

 

“I do hope you haven’t raised her hopes. It would be so cruel of you to do so. “

 

“Must you continue to be such an impossible child, Sherlock Holmes? I see Cambridge has done little to soothe your petulance, only enabled your spoilt behaviour.”

 

Sherlock lounged on the single bed of his dorm. His legs dangled above the headboard as he turned to the doorway and gazed at his brother upside down. Eyes dancing with grey, almost cruel mirth.  The elder Holmes drew himself up in annoyance, the trench coat doing little to hide the swell beneath its folds.

 

“What do you propose I tell Mummy? That her youngest is too busy failing classes to even ring his mother on her birthday? That he is on the cusp of academic suspension because he was caught selling answer sheets to his classmates? Which story shall I regale at family dinners? Which ones do you think will warm the fires of our home? How shall I make understand why her youngest refuses to grow up?”

 

“How about this one?” replied Sherlock, not missing a beat as he swung his legs down and onto the floor; pushing up the sleeves of his left arm.

 

Mycroft watched lips pursed, and back impossibly straight. Sherlock rooted around his bedside drawer for a few seconds and produced a new syringe, and a small vial. And before the elder brother could so much as utter a gasp of protest, he caught the glint of metal, a flash of clear liquid before he could register the route of the needle as it plunged into the deathly pale skin.

 

Staggering slightly, the Sherlock crossed the few meters of carpet between them; the needle dangling sickeningly off the sheet of skin. Mycroft tasted bile on his tongue and it pushed at the back of his throat. Sherlock’s pupils were blown wide, and manic.

 

“One to write home to, isn’t it, brother mine?” The words lancing through the air in hisses and gasps before the body fell in a seized heap on the floor.

 

Mycroft’s arms were winding their way around the shoulders before they had the chance to jostle the floor. He tried to do so with the air of familiarity and affection. But the body felt stiff and foreign in his embrace. He clutched his brother tighter to his chest, willing his body to beckon the sense recognition. But this was not the body of the child he soothed so many years ago. Oh, a lifetime ago. Yes, he may breathe the same shallow breaths now. Indeed, those curls may quiver and shake as they did then. But no, that body had fit lithe and compact in his arms, entrusting him to make the world all right once again. He had soothed fear from its innocence, and it had welcomed affection.

This. This cold man before him with sweat at his temples and red-lined aggression about his eyes was lost to him. As he lay shivering beneath him, Sherlock looked up at his brother and smirked. Mycroft gasped and shuddered.

 

“Good Lord. _Why, Sherlock?”_

 

“I very much doubt you’d understand.”

========

_“What were you doing up there, Sherlock?”_

_Small hiccups warmed and moistened the cotton of his shirt. He smoothed out the tousle of black curls – the face dug deeper against his stomach._

_“I-I wanted to touch the stars.” The boy whispered, fearful of reprimand. Mycroft leaned back against the solid and sturdy tree trunk. The still of the night magnified by the vastness of their grounds._

_“They seemed to call me. So lively, and warm. I wanted to go, you know?”_

_Mycroft looked up at the sky. The moon was enormous and smiling; her entourage twinkling in welcome._

 

_“Yes. Yes, I know.”_

 

_This wouldn’t do._

 

The next day Mycroft had set Sherlock down in the study and gave him textbooks, slides, and diagrams of the balls of gas that make up solar system. Determined to make him understand their physiology; that flights of fancy were nothing more than physics, and chemistry.

 

He snapped admonishments whenever he saw those pale grey eyes wander to the window, or whenever his attention turned at the baying of the hounds that ripped through trees and across the meadows. Hot blood flowing, and exciting through sinews and veins. Resentment flashed against him whenever he rapped his knuckles against the scalp of the raven curls.

 

Eventually, the wide-eyed innocence dimmed and slanted with the sharpness of knowledge. A part of him recoiled at the coldness that blinked back across from him, making his stomach writhe with guilt: robbery from children. But a Holmes could not be caught with fairy tales and nonsense.

 

Sentiment was not something to be encouraged, but to be driven away with rationality and truth.

 

At six years old, Sherlock Holmes traded in his toys for a microscope. Never again would he gaze with wonderment at the heavens above. Never again would he _wonder_ , and instead, he would _know._

_Caring is not an advantage._

 

_======_

 


End file.
